麻豆社

Hi everyone

First off 鈥� Happy New Year! I hope you鈥檝e had a lovely time in the past few weeks. It was so lovely on Tuesday to see the children coming back into school again, and it felt like a lively, happy place to be. It was really good to see them. Holidays are great 鈥� of course 鈥� but it鈥檚 terrific to be back into the thick of it again too, and to see and hear all the great things that the young people bring when they come back. We鈥檇 had a training day, which was good too 鈥� but Tuesday was better! All the best for everything in 2025

Second, some nice news from Rebecca about an award! Let鈥檚 hear from Rebecca about this! Sounds terrific!

As a school we have been working towards the ‘UNICEF Rights Respecting School Award’ and today we got our confirmation that we have achieved the Bronze level of this and can now move on with our plans to go for Silver.

We have a student steering group who have begun working on plans for a curriculum collapse day to spread the word further with our students about the work we have been planning.

The UK听Committee for UNICEF (UNICEF UK)听works with schools in the UK to create safe and inspiring places to learn, where children are respected, their talents are nurtured, and they are able to thrive. The Rights Respecting Schools Award embeds these values in daily school life and gives children the best chance to lead happy, healthy lives and to be responsible, active citizens.

Using the听听as our guide, we are working with UNICEF to support our pupils to have an understanding of their rights and to gain an understanding of how other children live around the world, developing their cultural capital..听

The Award recognises a school鈥檚 achievement in putting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into practice within the school and beyond and this will be a focus of our work over the next few years on our journey to Gold.

If you would like any more information on this, please follow the links below.

础濒蝉辞…翱蹿蝉迟别诲!听

I鈥檝e had to go back and re-write this (Friday lunchtime!) as I鈥檝e just had the official Ofsted Report back. We鈥檙e absolutely delighted, it鈥檚 lovely, so thanks so much for all your support with it 鈥� the Lead Inspector mentioned parents a lot. I鈥檒l get it sent out to you, but that will probably be Monday now. It鈥檚 so great for us to have the confidence to keep doing what we think is right for the children here, and for the staff to be acknowledged in this way

John S

馃槉 from John & the PHS Team 馃槉

We have 3 Super-Steering Groups which deliver our Key Drivers through our curriculum. The Key Drivers are Communication, Wellbeing and Independence. The Groups are Literacy, Physical Development and Personal Development

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Literacy

Becky, our Literacy Lead, leads a team that improve all aspects of literacy, including this year a lot of handwriting and oracy (it鈥檚 OK, she鈥檒l be going into explain all of that) as well as reading, phonics, books and all sorts!

A Box of Brilliant Books!

The Literacy Team had a lovely start to the new year, finding out that we had been successful in our application for a 鈥楤ox of Brilliant Books!鈥� from Read for Good. Read for Good is a charity who aim to 听鈥榚nable, empower and inspire a life-changing love of reading鈥�, and one way in which they do this to supply carefully curated boxes of books to hospitals, schools and community organisations. We are very fortunate to have been selected to receive this and will be sure to make the most of it! There鈥檚 a fantastic variety of reading materials included, and we already know that one of the best ways to encourage a love of reading is to ensure students have a choice in what they access.听

We鈥檙e having a bit of an overhaul of our school library this year and this will be a very welcome addition – and hopefully another reason for our students to get excited about reading! Watch this space for some student reviews in coming weeks!听

Happy Reading!

Physical Development

Everything that is fabulous in the world of Physical Development! This includes physio, hydro, MOVE, PE, HI, VI, a lot of OT and all sorts of key areas for us, including all of the Outdoor Learning, John Muir Award and many other aspects. Steph oversees this and will ensure that an aspect is shared in the blog each week

More from our Winter MOVE!

John-Joseph giving his best fist pump to Santa, Vivie enjoying the festive sensory lights and Mattie putting his hand-eye coordination skills to good use in a game of Snowman Boccia-skittles! We love our MOVE days and we are already Egg-cited for our Easter addition!!!

Fantastic stuff from the MOVE Team 鈥� roll-on Easter! (roll on, get it, like eggs do!)

Personal Development

One of the best things about the school and one of the most important for our pupils, PD covers PSHE, Wellbeing, Careers, Social Moral Spiritual & Cultural, Online Safety, Behaviour and similar areas. Jo pulls it all together. Let鈥檚 see what Jo and the team have in store for us this week! The inspectors really loved all of the PD we do!

PSHE

This term the topic will be 鈥淢anaging Feelings鈥�, please see below to see which subtopic your child will accessing. Please note that students access the age-appropriate curriculum at their assessed developmental stage. I will be available at Coffee & Catch-Up afternoons to share the curriculum and resources. In the meantime please do not hesitate to contact me or your class teacher if you have anything you wish to discuss. My email address is j.ferguson@percyhedley.org.uk

• KS2 鈥� Managing Strong Feelings
• KS3 鈥� Self Esteem and Unkind Comments
• KS4 鈥� Strong Feelings
• P16 鈥� Self Esteem and Unkind Comments

Some secondary students will be accessing an online workshop run by Kooth. This is a free NHS recommended app that allows older students to access mental health support in an online area that is fully supervised by expert professionals. If you are interested in this for your child follow the link

World Braille Day

World Braille Day is celebrated on听January 4th听to raise awareness of the importance of braille as a communication method for people who are blind or visually impaired.听The day also honours Louis Braille, the inventor of the braille system, who was born on January 4, 1809.

Braille is a tactile reading system that uses six raised dots to represent letters and numbers.听It’s used by people who are blind or partially sighted to read the same books and periodicals as those printed in a visual font.听Braille is essential for education, freedom of expression, and social inclusion.听It’s also used to label items like CDs, DVDs, cans, food packets, medicines, and documents.

4JF studied the Braille alphabet and used this to create secret messages. Can you figure out what they say?

Wellbeing

Let鈥檚 hear from Andy and the Wellbeing Team about what鈥檚 happening this year in their Connect Challenge series! Go Andy!

Happy New Year everyone and welcome back!

Our first Connect Challenge of 2025 was to “move your body”. Some of us enjoyed a few too many mince pies over the festive period, so we thought it was a good idea to encourage each other to stay healthy and keep moving!

It’s been great to hear so many classes have been taking part in various exercise and movement videos this week, including Laurie’s class who started their morning by doing a Joe Wicks workout. Staff and pupils were spotted catching their breath on the way to Maths on Wednesday morning!听

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Bobby and Shannon kept themselves moving at breaktimes this week – they’ve been running around the yard and playing football with each other!

And a big shoutout goes to Andrew T, who was spotted in his running gear at lunchtimes. He’s been running laps of the school yard and tells us he has ran between 3 and 4 miles this week! Way to go, Andrew!

Remember, moving your body helps you feel happy, strong and healthy!

Keep an eye out next week for more connect challenge fun!

Behaviour for Learning (BfL)

Behaviour for Learning (BfL) is a new team, and their work overlaps at times with Safeguarding, Wellbeing and Mental Health. BfL is an approach to understanding & developing children鈥檚 behaviour that focuses on their relationship with their self, others and the curriculum, and promotes readiness for education. The BfL team support staff and pupils.听The BfL approach is consistent with our values and compatible with systems such as PBS and NAPPI, that we also use

Early Years 鈥� The Ducklings!

There are 6 children in this class that only opened in September! Anyway, it was lovely to see them all again. Let鈥檚 hear from Kerry about what they鈥檝e been up to!

Welcome back to Early Years and Happy New Year to all. All children have returned refreshed and ready for the term ahead

This term we are looking at our wonderful world. The children will be introduced to the world around them with lots of fun exploring the different environments, elements, weather, the seasons, alongside day and night, light and dark

To start this term and the beginning the new year, this week we celebrated Epiphany where the 3 Kings visited Jesus. We made crowns, danced to music and played instruments. We made marks in glitter and sand. In attention group we watched as the balloon was blown up and we were showered with confetti when it was let go of. We also had a box robot in class. There is nothing better than a good old cardboard box! The children enjoyed trying it on and moving around the classroom

Sporting News of the Week! Let鈥檚 hear from Nathan!

Students at 麻豆社 have been very successful in Football Wanderers鈥� competition, but we felt we could continue our progress further so decided to set up Focus Team Lunch Clubs

With 3 different teams we have running there will be the Boys Team on Tuesday, Girls Team on Wednesday and the Post-16 Participation League Team on Friday each week

Nathan and Richard are looking forward to seeing the teams progress over the next coming weeks

鈥�..from John & the Team here at PHS

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Our Key Drivers

Communication, Wellbeing, Independence